Conventional methods for transmitting digital video signals include, for example, an HDMI transmission method disclosed in Non-Patent Literature 1. FIG. 26 shows the conventional transmission method disclosed in Non-Patent Literature 1. In an output device 700 in FIG. 26, a display capability capturer 701 receives EDID (Extended Display Identification Data) indicating display capability of a display device 900 from a display capability transmitter 901 included in the display device. Described in the EDID is a VIC (Video Identification Code) that specifies a video format of two-dimensional pictures that can be displayed by the display device 900 (for details, cf. Non-Patent Literature 2). The video format specifies screen resolution (horizontal and vertical pixel numbers), field rate, screen aspect ratio, pixel aspect ratio, etc. A video signal processor 702 generates digital video signals. A packet generator 703 generates an AVI InfoFrame packet including the VIC of the digital video signals, and the like. An HDMI transmitter 704 transmits the digital video signals obtained from the video signal processor 702 to the display device 900 via a transmission cable 800, during a video-data period based on the HDMI specification. Furthermore, the HDMI transmitter 704 transmits the AVI InfoFrame packet obtained from the packet generator 703 to the display device 900, during a blanking period based on the HDMI specification.
Then, in the display device 900, an HDMI receiver 902 receives the signals transmitted by the output device 700, and acquires, from the received signals, the AVI InfoFrame packet and the digital video signals. Next, the HDMI receiver 902 outputs the digital video signals to a memory 904, and outputs the AVI InfoFrame packet to a packet analyzer 903. The packet analyzer 903 analyzes the AVI InfoFrame packet outputted from the HDMI receiver 902, and obtains the video format corresponding to the digital video signals. The memory 904 temporarily stores the video signals outputted from the HDMI receiver 902. A display section 905 displays pictures from the video signals stored in the memory 904 by using the video format obtained through an analysis by the packet analyzer 903.